We've got a few new images in the photo gallery, but here's the best of the recent set:

Additionally, we've got some news... It's confirmed that we're having a girl.  Although not solid yet, we're leaning toward Sophia as the new critter's name.

Secondarily, we're received some less-than-pleasant news regarding the pregnancy.   It looks like Wick is at a very high risk of hemmorhage (due to the placenta tearing free prematurely).  She's likely going to be in the hospital for the last 6-8 weeks of her pregnancy.  At this point, we've been told that the next episode of bleeding will start her admission to the hospital.  We're hoping to keep her out past Christmas; but it's not a guarantee.  The risk of blood loss is pretty high, so it's best to keep her near the OR.  We need to keep the kid cooking for at least 24 weeks to have a 50% chance of survival with premature delivery.  We'll try to keep her as long as possible, but 01/15/09 is the minimum for survival.  02/15/09 is the date where the odds become more acceptable.  Remember, our actual "due date" isn't until 05/2009.

If you look closely at the third image, you can see appendages...

Two new ones today...

Only one today...

Notice the human-like shape...

Two new ones today:

Since Wick is so high risk, she gets lots of pictures.

As some of you may already know, we've been trying for children since we were first married back in 2005.  It's been a long and difficult process; but things are finally underway.

We received a lot of bad medical care (and worse advice) in the beginning.  You may have seen my posts in the past discussing our poor experiences with Reproductive Associates of Delaware.  We spent a lot of time with them, and got absolutely no results.  They were primarily interested in railroading us into using IVF.  There's nothing wrong with in-vitro, if you need it.  I look at IVR as a great last resort; but if it's not required, it shouldn't be "sold" on unsuspecting patients.  A short summary of Reproductive Associates of Delaware: They're terrible.  Go elsewhere.

Our frustration with Reproductive Associates of Delaware lead us to seek out a fellow named Jeffrey Russell.   He's the one who got us some success (without resorting to IVF, I might add...).  He ended up performing surgery on Jessawick.  Her fallopian tubes needed "sorted out" before she could become pregnant.  It wasn't pleasant, but he clearly corrected the damage.  The fellow literally has thousands of pictures on the walls of his office.  He's been doing this for a while.

Sorry if the following photos are bloody and unpleasant, but it's important for us at least.  He took these pictures during the "re-plumbing" operation:

It took several attempts, even after she healed from the surgery.  We did several rounds of Clomid, without success.  We tried Follistim, but Wick turned out to be allergic.  It's a shame, Follistim had the best injection system that we've seen.  It was very easy to use, and almost totally painless on Wick.  Sadly, it didn't work for us.

We then moved on to Bravelle.  Bravelle isn't nearly as pleasant to use as Follistim; but we got some good results on the second cycle.  We knew there was a risk of multiples when using fertility medications (that force extra eggs to release).  In our case, here's what the first ultrasound showed us:

The first ultrasound appeared to show twins.  Sadly, a later ultrasound told us that only one of the developed.  We're down to one.  However, we've been told that the remaining one is doing just fine.

Here's a closeup on one of them:

I expect that we'll have more ultrasounds results next week.